Published March 5, 2025
UPDATE: On May 20, 2025, OOR fully denies Mr. Long’s Petition for Reconsideration.
UPDATE: On May 15, 2025, Michael Long submits a Petition for Reconsideration to the Office of Open Records (OOR) in this matter. Mr. Long continues to fixate and push his intense interest to file legal documents and further an abuse of process regurgitating prior arguments that lack any legal or factual basis. Mr. Long’s obsession with this matter serves only to needlessly force the expenditures of public money for the Borough to continue legally defending itself against his frivolous conduct.
Mr. Long has repeatedly sought to use the Right-to-Know Law and OOR as an accounting or financial policing agency, powers the OOR does not have. OOR is not an investigative arm of the Commonwealth.
Long is asserting, once again, for a fourth time, the Borough acted in bad faith, when it did not. Long simply fails to understand (and may never understand) that Bath’s engagement during the OOR appeal process is evidence of good faith. Long received responsive records in this case, then illogically blames the Borough for following his own instructions in how those records were generated.
Petitions for Reconsideration must be filed within fifteen (15) days of the mailing date of the Final Determination and must concisely state the alleged errors in the Final Determination. All parties are copied, but the OOR will not accept any responses to the Petition. The OOR is also unable to accept any new evidence on reconsideration. A Petition for Reconsideration is deemed denied if the OOR doesn’t respond within thirty (30) days after it is filed.
The Borough filed a Petition for Reconsideration during the OOR AP 2023-1598 docket entry, which led to a Petition of Review (an appeal by the Borough) to the Northampton County Court of Common Pleas (NCCCP). That case, as of this update on May 15, 2025, has been pending before the NCCCP for 461 days.
UPDATE: On April 30, 2025, the Office of Open Records (OOR) issued their Final Determination in this matter. OOR determined that the Borough provided the Requestor with responsive records within its possession, custody and control. Further, OOR found that Bath did not act in bad faith. This marks the third appeal OOR has declined to find the Borough acted in bad faith, despite the Requestor’s insistence the Borough has acted in bad faith (See OOR Final Determinations at AP 2023-1598, and AP 2922-2675). The Requestor’s appeal was denied in its entirety. The Final Determination is provided below.
UPDATE: On January 21, 2025, Requestor Michael Long submitted a six-page request seeking three things: 1) Monthly bank statements from an account maintained by the Borough called the ‘Mayors Fund.’ Long requested bank statements from January 2016 through January 2025. 2) The creation of QuickBooks Audit Trail reports of the Borough’s general ledger (or General Fund) account ledgers 100 through 499.99 for the time period between January 1, 2018, through December 31, 2023, using a specific parameters outlined in the Request. And 3) a ‘Complete Chart of Accounts’ (without a timeframe) created through QuickBooks using specific parameters outlined in the Request.
Bath provided Long all responsive bank statements for the Mayor’s Fund, fulfilling Item 1.
With respect to Item 2, while not required to do so, Bath created all responsive customized audit trail reports in PDF format as opposed to also providing these records in an Excel format. Even while the Borough is not required to provide documents it does not ordinarily compile, format, or maintain.
With respect to Item 3, this portion of the Request lacked specificity. The Borough interpreted the meaning of Chart of Accounts, in context with Item 1 and 2, to be seeking records relative to the Chart of Accounts for the Mayor and General Funds. The Borough provided Long with four (4) created and customized reports.
Long corresponded with the Borough over the records he received. While Long complained the records were beyond the date range requested and that the customized Audit Trail reports were not “true” QuickBooks Audit Trail, he had an opportunity to inform the Borough what he was exactly looking for. The Borough asked Long for additional information to satisfy his concerns. Long instead opted to file an appeal with the OOR.
Long’s appeal is unclear, and the Borough believes the following issues are:
- Whether, in response to either Item 2 or 3 of the Request, the Borough should have provided additional documents concerning other, unidentified accounts because the Borough provided customized reports with respect to the ‘General Fund’ as opposed to documents involving the ‘General Ledger’, which the Borough does not maintain a General Ledger Fund.
- Whether the customized audit trail reports generated and compiled in connection with Item 2 of the Request using the instructions provided by the Requestor should include additional information.
- Whether Account 259.00 was omitted from the Borough’s response to Item 3 of the Request.
- Whether, in response to Item 2 of the Request, the Borough should also have generated a customized report in Excel, notwithstanding the Borough’s logistical impossibility of generating such reports in Excel, following the instructions provided by Long in his Request.
First, Bath is arguing that it had no obligation to create customized reports. An agency shall not be required to create a record which does not currently exist or to compile, format or organize a record in a manner in which the agency does not currently compile, maintain, format or organize. While courts have held simply pulling information from a database– as opposed to creating a custom report– does not constitute the creation of a record. In Long’s Request, he is not just seeking information within the Borough’s QuickBooks software. Long has instead asked the Borough to take data within QuickBooks and then manipulate that data to create customized reports using the parameters (and instructions) he has outlined. OOR has consistently held that this type of record creation is prohibited.
Long has acknowledged in this appeal that the records he requested don’t exist. He’s asked the Borough to ‘generate’, ‘create’ and instructed the Borough to ‘Create New Worksheet’. Long acknowledges that the Borough is required to manipulate information in a ‘report customization window.’ For these reasons, Bath’s position is the customized reports (generating these records) that did not exist at the time of the Request, should be denied or dismissed as moot.
Bath will also argue to the extent that the Borough was required to create customized reports, the Borough provided all responsive records. Finally, Bath is set to argue that to the extent the Borough was required to create customized reports, the Borough was not required to generate records in Excel format. A record, in whatever medium it exists is sufficient to fulfil a Request. The Borough is not required under the RTKL to grant a Requestor the same record in multiple mediums.
On March 14, 2025, the official record was closed by OOR. True to form, just as Long has done in previous appeals with OOR, he submitted a filing to OOR on a closed record. OOR docketed Long’s filing. Long’s recent filing is rather frivolous and irrelevant to the current appeal. Long asserts false comparisons between this current appeal and a previous appeal between the parties (OOR AP 2023-1083). Long takes the information from both cases completely out of context and fails to realize, as in this current case, the Borough was never under any obligation to create customized reports as it did during the AP 2023-1083 matter.
Long’s recent filing on a closed record is baseless and serves to only perpetuate the matter. Long repeats his behavior of flooding the docket time and again as he has in past OOR appeals and during the Borough’s current Northampton County Court of Common Pleas Petition for Review; where in the County case, Long was actually sanctioned by a judge in the amount of $1,000 based upon his frivolous, vexatious, and bad faith filings which were unsupported by legal authority and were irrelevant (See Docket #2023-1598 (PENDING) for more information.)
OOR has a deadline to issue a Final Determination in this matter by May 5, 2025.
Office of Open Records Docket Entries (27 Entries):
| Filed | Description |
| 05/20/2025 | OOR Denial of Petition for Reconsideration (1 page) |
| 05/15/2025 | Requestor Petition for Reconsideration (14 pages) |
| 04/30/2025 | Final Determination (12 pages) |
| 03/19/2025 | OOR Submission (1 page) [OOR is not accepting any further documentation on a closed record unless the Review Officer asks for such information. This is a stark difference in past Appeals involving the Borough, where the Requestor, namely Michael Long, continually filed documentation on a closed record that served no purpose other than having a dilatory effect on the case.] |
| 03/19/2025 | Agency Submission (31 pages) |
| 03/15/2025 | Requestor Submission (11 pages) |
| 03/14/2025 | RECORD CLOSED [Requestor Michael Long has a repeated history of filing submissions on a closed record.] Note: On April 14th, Mr. Long attempted a second submission, one month after this record closed. The submission was 1,533 pages in length. OOR did not accept this submission. OOR concluded the Requestor is not entitled to rebuttal for the sake of having the last word. Something Mr. Long has consistently tried to do in previous RTKL matters. |
| 03/14/2025 | Agency Submission (13 pages) |
| 03/13/2025 | Requestor Submission (23 pages) |
| 03/10/2025 | Requestor Correspondence (1 page) [Requestor rejects mediation of the matter.] |
| 03/10/2025 | OOR Correspondence regarding Mediation (1 page) |
| 03/10/2025 | Agency Correspondence (3 pages) |
| 03/07/2025 | Entry of Appearance (1 page) [Attorney for the Borough: Chad Schnee.] |
| 03/05/2025 | OOR Additional Extension (1 page) |
| 03/05/2025 | OOR Acknowledgement (7 pages) |
| 03/05/2025 | OOR Notice of Deadlines (1 page) |
| 03/04/2025 | Requestor Appeal (996 pages) |
| 03/04/2025 | Requestor Appeal – Borough’s Response to RTKR #01.2025 (26 pages) |
| 03/04/2025 | Requestor Appeal – Appeal Statement (9 pages) |
| 03/04/2025 | Requestor Appeal (4 pages) |
| 03/04/2025 | Requestor Appeal (1 page) |
| 03/04/2025 | Requestor Appeal (1 page) |
| 03/04/2025 | Requestor Appeal (222 pages) |
| 03/04/2025 | Requestor Appeal (16 pages) |
| 03/04/2025 | Requestor Appeal (12 pages) |
| 03/04/2025 | Requestor Appeal (4 pages) |
| 03/04/2025 | Requestor Appeal (2 pages) |
| 03/04/2025 | Requestor Appeal (698 pages) |
